Last year, when reports about a possible United Nations role in the oil-for-food scam in Iraq first broke out, few people could have imagined its scale. Fewer would have believed that senior UN officials and dozens of prominent personalities in more than 30 countries had been drawn into a diabolical scheme to rob the Iraqi people, then suffering under UN-imposed sanctions. The earliest reports, based on documents from Iraqi ministries, showed that a UN assistant secretary-general was at the center of the scam.
At first the UN reacted to the reports with haughty denials and attempts at stonewalling an investigation. But the mess smelled so bad that Secretary-General Kofi Annan, whose son is accused of having hitched a ride on the Iraqi gravy train, was forced to accept a limited probe. To head it, Annan chose Paul Volcker, the former boss of the Federal Reserve, the United States’ central bank. Annan also advised his assistant Benon Sevan, the man at the center of the scandal, to take early retirement.
Volcker has just unveiled his initial findings; and they point to an even bigger mess than originally suspected. Over 4,500 companies from more than two dozen countries, including the United States, were involved in buying Iraqi oil under Saddam Hussein to generate money Iraq needed to import food, medicine and other necessities. Saddam Hussein devised a system under which he used oil quotas to buy support in the UN and in a number of Arab, European and Asian countries. The favored person or group would be allocated a quantity of crude oil at a given price that could then be sold at a margin that would then be split between Saddam and the recipient of the favor.
According to initial estimates, more than $4.5 billion was thus siphoned off. Considering that the oil-for-food program generated a total income of over $40 billion, the amount stolen appears even more daunting. The legendary Forty Thieves of Baghdad could not have pulled off such a scam even with help from Ali Baba.
It would, of course, be too easy to blame all that on Saddam Hussein. But in corruption, as in most walks of life, it takes two to tango. The list of names that have already emerged of those involved in the theft includes French and Russian Cabinet ministers, Arab-nationalist intellectuals, holier-than-thou journalists from a dozen countries, and, last but not least, hundreds of supposedly respectable Western corporations. Without their help Saddam would not have been able to pull off the scam.
While Volcker’s mission is welcome as a first step, it is far from sufficient for at least two reasons.
The first is that it cannot subpoena anyone or question witnesses under oath. Many of the politicians, company directors, journalists and free-wheelers named in the documents could simply refuse to answer Volcker’s telephone calls, let alone testify. The second reason is that Volcker’s mission could bring no criminal charges against any of those involved in the giant-size theft.
Only a proper judicial inquiry, held in public, by the United States, which is the UN’s host country, preferably in conjunction with the European Union and, of course, Iraq, could reveal the whole truth and bring the thieves to justice.
